BBB - Greenlight - Ruby on Rails

[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I'd like to install BBB/Greenlight as well as Ruby on Rails so that I have the option of modifying the apps if I need to.  

I'm trying to figure out the order of installation as well as the type of installation required.

Does the following make sense...

1.  Install BBB via bbb-install.sh.  Do I install all options or omit a few options?  In other words, do I omit the greenlight (-g) installation if I plan to modify it in Ruby on Rails?

wget -qO- https://ubuntu.bigbluebutton.org/bbb-install.sh | bash -s -- -v xenial-200 -s bbb.example.com -e in...@example.com -t -g

2.  Next, in reading other posts, I should go ahead and install Ruby on Rails on my server?

link to step by step instructions from another post:  https://tecadmin.net/install-ruby-on-rails-on-ubuntu/

3. Is my next step to install Greenlight without Docker?  (or should I be able to modify Greenlight with Ruby on Rails now?)

Carl

[John Ma]

Hi Carl,

To answer your questions:

1. It shouldn't matter whether or not you keep the -g when installing bbb.

2. Yes, you should install Ruby on Rails.

3. Yep, you should be able to modify Greenlight with Ruby on Rails now.

Best of luck!

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[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I clicked on the 'Ruby on Rails' link from the Greenlight documentation.  The Ruby on Rails install documentation mentions a few components to install, including Node.js.  I did a quick check and noticed that Node v8.12.0 is already installed on my server.  Should I follow the install instructions to the letter or look to see what's already been installed and skip those?

Carl

[John Ma]

If node.js is already installed, then it should be fine. 

It doesn't hurt to follow the instructions completely, but you can definitely skip anything you've already installed.

As long as Ruby and Rails are correctly installed in the end, you're good.

[Carl Gosselin]

Sounds good.  thanks.

Carl

[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I did a quick test of my installation of Ruby on Rails (for Greenlight modifications) by running a rails server.

I received the following error:

...

/root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.3/lib/ruby/gems/2.5.0/gems/puma-3.12.0/lib/puma/binder.rb:272:in `initialize': Address already in use - bind(2) for "0.0.0.0" port 3000 (Errno::EADDRINUSE)

Looks like the following is using port 3000...

root@virtual-session-engine:~/myapp# lsof -wni tcp:3000

COMMAND  PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME

node    8995 root   15u  IPv4 182527      0t0  TCP *:3000 (LISTEN)

Should I do a kill -9 8995 and try again? Or should I try with another port?

Objective: I'm just trying to load http://localhost:3000 on my browser.  

Carl

[John Ma]

Hi Carl,

You can definitely try another port. Like maybe:

bin/rails server -p 3001

If you're doing this, you will need to access a different endpoint relative to the new port: https://localhost:3001

Killing the existing process would definitely free up the port, just make sure its not an important process first.

[John Ma]

*** http://localhost:3001 is the endpoint, my bad

[Carl Gosselin]

Thanks.  I ran the following:  rails server -p 3001

result:

=> Booting Puma

=> Rails 5.2.1 application starting in development 

=> Run `rails server -h` for more startup options

Puma starting in single mode...

* Version 3.12.0 (ruby 2.5.3-p105), codename: Llamas in Pajamas

* Min threads: 5, max threads: 5

* Environment: development

* Listening on tcp://localhost:3001

Use Ctrl-C to stop

So it looks good.  But when I do "http://localhost:3001" in the browser, it says "this site can't be reached.  localhost refused to connect."

Any ideas? 

[Carl Gosselin]

Finally got it to work.  I decided to do a "kill -9 8995".  I then did the "http://localhost:3000" and it finally worked.  Thanks for the help!

Carl

[Chad Pilkey]

The other process that was listening on 3000 was the HTML5 client. Don't really need the HTML5 client for development of Greenlight, but something to be aware of.

[Carl Gosselin]

Good to know.  If I need to, how should I restart processes that I previously killed (by accident)?

Carl

[Chad Pilkey]

Running "sudo bbb-conf --restart" will restart everything. It's the safest option.

Can also run "sudo systemctl restart bbb-html5.service" to restart just the HTML5 service.

[Carl Gosselin]

Thanks again for the info.

next step:  I'm in the process of cloning the greenlight repository from github to my server.  

I received the following message during cloning:

fatal: destination path 'greenlight' already exists and is not an empty directory.

I installed bigbluebutton + greenlight via bbb-install.sh.

Should I simply delete the existing greenlight folder prior to cloning the greenlight repository on my server?

Carl

[Chad Pilkey]

You can also just clone it somewhere else. I usually make a ~/dev directory and clone all of the my git projects in there to avoid naming conflicts.

[Carl Gosselin]

Great.  Thanks.

Carl

[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I created a dev folder and cloned the Greenlight repository from github.  I'm now attempting to run Greenlight locally.  When trying to execute "bin/rails server --port=3000", I get the following:

"rbenv: version `2.5.1' is not installed (set by /root/dev/greenlight/.ruby-version)"

The Rails version I just installed is 5.2.1.  I'm guessing rbenv is looking for the installation of version 2.5.1?

Not sure how to jump this hurdle.  Can anyone help?

..

Great.  Thanks.

Carl

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[John Ma]

Hi Carl,

The installation of Ruby on Rails consists of two parts:

1. The installation of Ruby

2. The installation of Rails

In this particular case, it would seem that Ruby 2.5.1 is missing.

You should be able to check the version of Ruby using the command:

ruby -v

If the version isn't 2.5.1 you can run the following to update it:

rbenv install 2.5.1

[Carl Gosselin]

Thanks John. 

I checked the version of ruby.  It was the following:  ruby 2.5.3p105 (2018-10-18 revision 65156) [x86_64-linux]

I then ran the following (as you mentioned):  rbenv install 2.5.1

The ruby version is now the following:  ruby 2.5.1p57 (2018-03-29 revision 63029) [x86_64-linux]

I got an error when running the following:  bin/rails server --port=3000

Traceback (most recent call last):

4: from bin/rails:5:in `<main>'

3: from bin/rails:5:in `load'

2: from /root/dev/greenlight/bin/spring:9:in `<top (required)>'

1: from /root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/lib/ruby/2.5.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:59:in `require'

/root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/lib/ruby/2.5.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:59:in `require': cannot load such file -- bundler (LoadError)

In re-reading the documentation, I'm wondering if I need to re-run the following commands as well...

rbenv global 2.5.1

gem install bundler

gem install rails -v 5.2.1

Am I on the right path?

I also noticed it didn't recognized 'rails -v' in the new 'dev' folder:

rbenv: rails: command not found

The `rails' command exists in these Ruby versions:

  2.5.3

Carl

[John Ma]

Hi Carl,

I'd try just running "gem install bundler" or "sudo gem install bundler" first and see if that works.

If it didn't, then install rails v5.2.1.

If there are still issues after that, you can try updating the bin:

bundle exec rake rails:update:bin

[Carl Gosselin]

No luck.  I'm getting all sorts of error messages.  I'm starting to wonder if I should just start from scratch again.  If I do start over, should I install an older version of Ruby on Rails so it matches the versioning in the greenlight folder on GitHub?

Carl

[John Ma]

Its possible that installing 2.5.1 over 2.5.3 caused an issue with configuration. In this case, the quickest way might just be to reinstall Ruby on Rails (version 2.5.1). Thankfully Ruby on Rails doesn't take too long to install.

To uninstall versions of Ruby using rbenv, run:

rbenv versions

to see the versions and then run:

rbenv uninstall <version>

to uninstall the ruby version.

Then there should be a dropdown in the installation tutorial where you can choose the version: https://gorails.com/setup/ubuntu/16.04.

[Carl Gosselin]

Here are the versions of ruby and rails at the root of the directory on my server:

ruby -v:  ruby 2.5.3p105 (2018-10-18 revision 65156) [x86_64-linux]

rails -v:  Rails 5.2.1

After I installed Ruby on Rails, I created a new 'dev/greenlight' folder.  The version is different:

ruby -v:  ruby 2.5.1p57 (2018-03-29 revision 63029) [x86_64-linux]

rails -v: (see error below)

Could not find pg-0.21.0 in any of the sources

Run `bundle install` to install missing gems.

Should I go ahead and uninstall everything related to ruby and rails at both locations?  And then re-install ruby and rails at the root of the directory or inside the 'dev/greenlight' folder? (or does it not matter?)

Carl

[John Ma]

Oh, if you get an error like that, you need to run the command "bundle install" to install the missing gems.

If for some reason you don't have it, you can run "gem install bundler".

I'd try running the application in the new 'dev/greenlight' folder before reinstalling (both locations, just be careful of any other applications you have that currently use Ruby).

[Carl Gosselin]

ok.  thanks.

1) I ran 'bundle install' in the dev/greenlight folder and received the following...

An error occurred while installing pg (0.21.0), and Bundler cannot continue.

Make sure that `gem install pg -v '0.21.0' --source 'https://rubygems.org/'` succeeds before bundling.

2) I next ran the following:  gem install pg -v '0.21.0' --source 'https://rubygems.org/'

Got the following error...

Building native extensions. This could take a while...

ERROR:  Error installing pg:

ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    current directory: /root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.5.0/gems/pg-0.21.0/ext

/root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/bin/ruby -r ./siteconf20181030-15352-1spm3vf.rb extconf.rb

checking for pg_config... no

No pg_config... trying anyway. If building fails, please try again with

 --with-pg-config=/path/to/pg_config

checking for libpq-fe.h... no

Can't find the 'libpq-fe.h header

*** extconf.rb failed ***

Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of necessary

libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more details.  You may

need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:

--with-opt-dir

--without-opt-dir

--with-opt-include

--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include

--with-opt-lib

--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib

--with-make-prog

--without-make-prog

--srcdir=.

--curdir

--ruby=/root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/bin/$(RUBY_BASE_NAME)

--with-pg

--without-pg

--enable-windows-cross

--disable-windows-cross

--with-pg-config

--without-pg-config

--with-pg_config

--without-pg_config

--with-pg-dir

--without-pg-dir

--with-pg-include

--without-pg-include=${pg-dir}/include

--with-pg-lib

--without-pg-lib=${pg-dir}/lib

To see why this extension failed to compile, please check the mkmf.log which can be found here:

  /root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.5.0/extensions/x86_64-linux/2.5.0-static/pg-0.21.0/mkmf.log

extconf failed, exit code 1

Gem files will remain installed in /root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.5.0/gems/pg-0.21.0 for inspection.

Results logged to /root/.rbenv/versions/2.5.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.5.0/extensions/x86_64-linux/2.5.0-static/pg-0.21.0/gem_make.out

3) I then tried 'gem install bundler'.  This seemed to have completed successfully...

Successfully installed bundler-1.17.1

Parsing documentation for bundler-1.17.1

Done installing documentation for bundler after 2 seconds

1 gem installed

4) So I went ahead and tried the following:  'bin/rails server --port=3000'

Unfortunately, still getting the same error...

Could not find pg-0.21.0 in any of the sources

Run `bundle install` to install missing gems.

Let me know if I should try a few more options.  If not, I'm tempted to just start from scratch again (blow away the server and re-install everything).

The only components I have installed are bigbluebutton (via bbb-install.sh) and Ruby on Rails.

Carl

[John Ma]

The pg gem correlates to postgresql, which may be used as the database.

I've had a similar issue before with some of the headers.

Try following these steps:

1. Run: 

sudo apt-get install libpq-dev

gem install pg -v '0.21.0' --source 'https://rubygems.org/'

2. If there are no errors, then you can try accessing the server:

bundle install

bin/rails server --port=3000

[Carl Gosselin]

Thanks John.  Looks like this did the trick.  I was able to run 'bin/rails server --port=3000' and got the following in the command prompt...

=> Booting Puma

=> Rails 5.0.7 application starting in development on http://localhost:3000

=> Run `rails server -h` for more startup options

Puma starting in single mode...

* Version 3.11.4 (ruby 2.5.1-p57), codename: Love Song

* Min threads: 5, max threads: 5

* Environment: development

* Listening on tcp://localhost:3000

Use Ctrl-C to stop

However, when I go to the browser and do http://[IP address]:3000, I can't seem to get the Ruby on Rails screen.  It says "this site can't be reached - [IP address] refused to connect.  Any ideas on how to fix this?  I've tried :3000 and :3001.  

I was able to get the Ruby on Rails screen in the browser On my first Ruby on Rails installation (before I created the dev/greenlight folder).  I haven't been able to do it since.

Carl

[John Ma]

Typically, this means there is something up with your hosts file.

You can see your hosts by running:

vim /etc/hosts

The quick solution would be to run:

bin/rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3000 

and try accessing http://0.0.0.0:3000.

Otherwise, have you tried accessing http://localhost:3000 ?

[Carl Gosselin]

Maybe I'm not understanding how this works.  I'm not sure I can do any of those localhost calls (I tried and they didn't work).  

I created a droplet (virtual server) on Digital Ocean.  I'm accessing the remote server via ssh.  So I run 'rails server' remotely via ssh, I then go to the browser on my macbook and enter something like the following: http://123.123.123.123:3000

It worked when I followed the Ruby on Rails instruction the first time but not after I created the dev/greenlight folder to copy the greenlight app from github.

Any suggestions?  If not, I think I'll just go ahead and rebuild the droplet (virtual server from Digital Ocean) from scratch, then install bbb-install.sh, and then install Ruby on Rails with the version that's compatible with the greenlight project from github.  Does this seem right?

Carl

[John Ma]

That's odd, I thought the "-b 0.0.0.0" would've worked.

Can you display whats in your /etc/hosts file?

You can access it by running:

nano /etc/hosts

[Carl Gosselin]

Alright.  Looks like it worked.  I ran the following again:  bin/rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3000 

Then I went to the browser and used my server's IP address instead of 0.0.0.0 (similar to 123.123.123.123:3000)

It worked. Thanks for your guidance and patience John!

Carl

[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I made changes to the en.yml file but I'm not seeing the changes on the webpage.  Do I need to clear cache somehow?

I'm currently running greenlight via Ruby on Rails.  I'm accessing greenlight online via port 3000.  Something like this 123.123.123.123:3000

command: bin/rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3000

I was able to run through the exercise in the documentation to change "BigBlueButton" to "My Server" in en.yml.  

I tried to change it again but can't see the changes anymore.  Any ideas?

</

[John Ma]

Hi Carl,

I'm not too sure if its the cause, but I should mention that if you modify a config file like en.yml, you'll need to restart the server to make changes appear.

[Carl Gosselin]

ok.  thanks.

I ran: sudo bbb-conf --restart

I then ran: bin/rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3000

- didn't work as HTML5 (I think) is using this port again (I remember killing the PID last time)

I then ran: bin/rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3001

The server is up and running but I'm still not seeing the recent changes I did in the en.yml file.  Anything else I can do to see the changes?

[John Ma]

Sorry I should've been clearer, I meant restart the Ruby on Rails application to make changes appear (CTRL + C and then "bin/rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -p 3001").

Unless you are running on production, your application should pick up the changes. Can you check the en.yml file in the directory where you installed greenlight to see if the changes are there?

You can run this from the directory you installed Greenlight to dump the file contents:

cat /config/locales/en.yml

[Carl Gosselin]

interesting.  It says the filename does not exist when I run that command (I even checked for typos).  However, I can 'cd' into each directory and 'nano' open the en.yml file.  I can see the recent changes I made so the changes are on the server.  One thing I find odd is that the filename is in bold and green.  None of the other '.yml' files have this characteristic.  Have I missed a step?

Carl

[Chad Pilkey]

John's cat command had an extra leading slash on the file path. It should have been "cat config/locales/en.yml".

The colour of the filename when running "ls" is based on type and file permissions. The en.yml file probably just have execute rights. It shouldn't have any effect in this scenario.

[Carl Gosselin]

ok. thanks.  I ran "cat config/locales/en.yml" and the changes are there.  However, still can't see the most recent changes on the website.

I decided to reload the original en.yml file and even that one doesn't work.  The original file should display "Welcome to BigBlueButton".  Instead it's still showing my first edit - "Welcome to My Server."  This edit no longer exists on my server.  I don't know where this is coming from.  Any ideas?

Carl

[Carl Gosselin]

Wow.  I just figured it out.  I kept an earlier copy of en.yml and called it en_original.yml in the same folder.  The server chose to read the 'en_original.yml' as opposed to the 'en.yml' file I was working on.  Got rid of 'en_original.yml'. Problem solved.

Carl

[John Ma]

That's good to hear and definitely helpful to keep in mind when dealing with the config/locales folder.

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[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I made changes to greenlight via Ruby on Rails on a local instance.  Can I apply these changes to my production site?

Carl  

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[Chad Pilkey]

Once you've got something ready for production the next step is to build Greenlight and deploy it as a docker container. There's some documentation here, http://docs.bigbluebutton.org/install/greenlight-v2.html#running-greenlight-on-a-docker-container, for how to build the docker image. Once you have the image built you can push it to a docker repository (Docker Hub) or just build it locally on your production server. The key is to substitute in your newly built image name in the docker deployment method of your choice.

[Carl Gosselin]

Great.  Thanks.

Carl

Carl

Great.  Thanks.

Carl

Carl

<font face="Arial,

[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I ran through the instructions to run greenlight as a docker container.  I'm currently working through a few errors after running "docker-compose up -d" to start the server:

1st error:  ERROR: for greenlight-v2  Cannot create container for service app: Conflict. The container name "/greenlight-v2" is already in use by container "2ada29...". You have to remove (or rename) that container to be able to reuse that name.

So I went back to the docker-compose.yml file and renamed the "container:" to something other than greenlight-v2

I re-ran "docker-compose up -d" and got the following error:

ERROR: for greenlight-test-container  Cannot start service app: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint greenlight-test-container (621c92c874d5f53b27367b645a024a9a197db13056c8e0c4cc46780e622dc9f6): Bind for 0.0.0.0:5000 failed: port is already allocated

I'm wondering if port 5000 is in conflict with the default greenlight app that was installed with bbb-install.sh (the one I'm trying to replace).  Do I need to remove the default greenlight?

[Carl Gosselin]

Hello,

I did an "lsof -i :5000" to see what was using port 5000...

lsof -i :5000

COMMAND    PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME

docker-pr 8113 root    4u  IPv6 175684      0t0  TCP *:5000 (LISTEN)

What is docker-pr?  looks like some sort of pull request?  

Do I need port 5000 to see my changes online or should I use another port in the docker-compose.yml file?

[Carl Gosselin]

Looking into this further.  I inspected the default greenlight app with the following command:  docker inspect greenlight-v2

...

 "NetworkSettings": {

            "Bridge": "",

            "SandboxID": "e67c50805f89f4210354f7265bb408ffe6627bcda405cf14e075fb2bd0c52931",

            "HairpinMode": false,

            "LinkLocalIPv6Address": "",

            "LinkLocalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,

            "Ports": {

                "80/tcp": [

                    {

                        "HostIp": "0.0.0.0",

                        "HostPort": "5000"

                    }

                ]

            }...

I can see that the greenlight version that I installed with bbb-install.sh is using port 5000.  

Any hints on how I switch to the greenlight version that I modified?  Do I need to change the port setting in the default greenlight app as well?

For example:  default greenlight -> change to port 5001 (somehow) and modified greenlight -> set to port 5000? 

[Chad Pilkey]

If you're going to run your own modified version of Greenlight there's no purpose in running the stock version alongside. If you just shutdown the other docker container and start up yours on the default port it should just work. There's two different ways to destroy a docker container depending on which method was used to start it (docker-compose down vs. docker stop).

[Carl Gosselin]

Thanks Chad.  I was using 'docker-compose' to start and stop the modified version.  I didn't realize I had to use the other method (docker stop/ start) to control the stock version.  

With the stock version stopped, I'm able to use port 5000 now on the modified version.  Everything looks good in the terminal but when I navigate to the browser, I get the following message:

'An unhandled lowlevel error occurred. The application logs may have details.'

There is a log folder with 'development.log' and 'production.log'.  I took a quick look but not sure what I'm looking for.  Am I looking in the right place?

[Fred Dixon]

Hi Carl,

> There is a log folder with 'development.log' and 'production.log'.  I took a quick look but not sure what I'm looking for.  Am I looking in the right place?

Look for any logs that look like an error message.  If you trigger the error with the browser, the entries at the end of each log should show some clues as to what triggered the error.

Green Light is a ruby on rails application.  You'll also need to understand how rails works (and how to debug rails applications) if you want to make custom changes.  

See

  https://guides.rubyonrails.org/debugging_rails_applications.html

Regards,... Fred

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[Carl Gosselin]

Thanks for the link Fred.  I definitely need more education on rails.  I'll keep learning.

Thanks for all the help so far.  You guys are amazing!

Carl

[Carl Gosselin]

I figured out what was causing the following message:

'An unhandled lowlevel error occurred. The application logs may have details.'

I missed a step.  The SECRET_KEY_BASE variable in the env file was blank.  I ran the following to generate the key:

docker run --rm bigbluebutton/greenlight:v2 bundle exec rake secret

I can now see my changes in production.  The transformation is now complete!

Thanks again for everyones help.  I learned so much!

Carl